


Dents in the Paperbacks You Left

by pflaume



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Established Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan, Established Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, Lots of tears, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pflaume/pseuds/pflaume
Summary: Because maybe you really can’t actually love someone as much as you can miss them, he slowly starts to acknowledge, as he stares back at his boyfriend’s ridiculously annoying face through the expensive overseas call.





	Dents in the Paperbacks You Left

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by twt user kellyblaus tweet: "My man just facetimed me drunk as hell eating a slice of pizza while walking down the street and he goes YOU WANNA KNOW HOW PERFECT YOU ARE? LOOK AT THIS PIZZA... FOR YOU, I'LL DROP THIS PIZZA. IT'S GONE! and just threw the damn pizza into the street."
> 
> But angst.
> 
> This is short!

 

_“You can love someone so much but you can never love people as much as you can miss them.”_

Jeonghan used to call bullshit on these words: _John Green, An Abundance of Katherines._ He has never liked books even when he was younger; thought they cost too much for a one shot entertainment that will eventually end at some point in time, abandoned and forgotten to collect years of dust in the bookshelf.

Now, Jeonghan wonders if the real reason why he detests paperbacks is because albeit it does collect dirt in one part of the house, he doesn’t want to admit the voice that speaks to him every time he reads: thoughts about himself that he denies and couldn’t get himself to swallow through the lump in his throat.

Because maybe you really can’t actually love someone as much as you can miss them, he slowly starts to acknowledge, as he stares back at his boyfriend’s ridiculously annoying face through the expensive overseas call.

“Jeongie!” Seungcheol slurs at the camera and Jeonghan picks up the consecutive giggles of their friends, Dokyeom and Soonyoung, somewhere behind him and out of the frame.

Someone says, “We’re really sorry Jeonghan! Seungcheol got piss drunk!” Probably Wonwoo.

And then followed by a, “Says he misses you! He’s bonkers. But we’ll get him home so don’t worry!”

They better be.

“You look really handsome today,” his boyfriend adds in his voice that Jeonghan craves to hear again, seemingly unashamed with how he looked very wrecked due to alcohol but _god, he’s still so beautiful._

That’s how he says _“you look tired and I’m sorry for interrupting your nap but I’m thankful you still give me the time of the day even though this distance sucks”,_ Jeonghan reminds himself, as if he’s afraid he would somehow forget it in between lines.

He could only crack a small smile.

Somehow, years of being apart have taken its toll. Jeonghan has never been vocal with his feelings for Seungcheol. Words of affirmation were harder pills to swallow than just shoving the elder away every time he asks for affection; not that it means he loves Seungcheol any less. Seungcheol wasn’t clingy. Jeonghan wasn’t unattached. In fact, he is, too much; which is why he never voices it out. And regrets have been shunning the living soul of his daylights with asking if it would have made a difference had he loved Seungcheol, personal and up close.

Jeonghan will never know.

“What time is it there?” Seungcheol groggily asks, harshly fighting the cold night air of whatever street he is walking (the camera frame isn’t too wide but it looks like they’re all shitfaced walking towards that parking space only meters away from their favorite bar when they were in highschool) but Jeonghan chooses to memorize his strong brows; his doe eyes although they’re a bit bloodshot; his luscious lips that he has always been jealous of and the entirety of his whole face.

The younger is thankful that the focus suddenly reverted to a blur as he thinks Seungcheol might have dropped his phone because at the same time, a helpless tear escapes his right eye. He harshly wipes it away along with someone whining “You could’ve dropped my pizza!” from the call’s background. He’s sure it was Seungkwan.

“I’m sorry about that, baby.” The focus is back and Seungcheol is laughing with Joshua who is constantly shoving him back and forth that the action made too much static noises through the call. Jeonghan lowers the volume down a bit, considering that his roommate is just in the kitchen.

“You both are idiots,” he scoffs at the same time Joshua got pulled away by a laughing Seokmin telling him that Mingyu tripped over Jihoon and just how short can their friend be that someone could trip on him.

He misses his friends. He misses Seungcheol, who by now is pouting at him; big lower lips protruding into a silly front. “Come home, now. New York sucks because I’m not there and don’t even try to deny it.”

This is how Seungcheol says _“I miss you and I totally understand that circumstances might hinder you from coming back home but I’ll ask, every time I got the chance to, even if it means being turned down a couple of times. I will, every day.”_

Indeed, the past years were strings of _“I’m sorry”_ and _“No, I can’t, baby”_ over hubs of Jeonghan’s paper works and Seungcheol’s all-nighters just to accompany him study for important exams, which were always recuperated with a knowing smile from Seungcheol and a determined face that makes Jeonghan aches in parts he never knew existed. Had he known better, he shouldn’t have let Seungcheol see his acceptance letter from the university but the older was the first one to claim pride and immediately gave him a bear hug the moment he announced it to the whole group.

 _“We will make it”_ were Seungcheol’s words that night. Admittedly, Jeonghan wasn’t that keen on his relationship with Seungcheol, opting to focus more on his career. He somehow justified that they were young and if they would not end the way Seungcheol has wanted, they would probably meet more people after. At that part, he was selfish.

Also foolish.

 _“Because back then, all emotions felt like a play, like I was experimenting with feeling rather than stuck with it.”_ John Green; Turtles All the Way Down. God, Jeonghan really _hates_ books.

Because the thing is, once you lose someone, you start to realize that at the end of the day, he’s the person you want to come home to; the person whom you want to share everything with. You can never really miss someone before losing him, no?

“I can’t, baby,” Jeonghan whispers, now letting tears fall freely down his fatigued face, soaking his cheeks through. His sobs are wrecked and it hurts _really bad_ to miss someone that way. He curls in his bed, as if holding every pieces of him together but he’s left with emptiness in the pit of his stomach and he lets the afternoon glow swallow him down as the dusk begins to seep in through his windows.

Seungcheol suddenly sobers at that, alcohol wiped off his entire system, and then he immediately says, “Oh sweetie, don’t cry _please_.”

This is Seungcheol’s way of saying _“Don’t cry because I might cry too. We both would cry and somehow, that would mean giving up. So please don’t cry because I’m the only one holding us up.”_

“You think I’m ugly when I cry,” Jeonghan retaliates, _very very softly_ , wanting to swerve the hollow down his gut into something light and distracting.

And then, Seungcheol’s face breaks into a big goofy smile and oh no, it starts to hurt even more. “You wanna know how perfect you are?!” Seungcheol shouts.

Hansol’s voice suddenly floats through the call, also shouting, “Oh hell no, someone stop Seungcheol hyung!”

But the eldest only continues, “Look at this pizza!” he hollers at the call, at everyone, at the distance stretching between the both of them. Somehow, Jeonghan pretends Seungcheol is there, actually piss drunk and shouting like a mad fuck. “For you, I’ll drop this pizza!”

Jeonghan laughs through his tears, remembering how idiot his lover can sometimes be. His chest heaves in, sucking deep harsh stops of breaths when Seungcheol throws the damn pizza into the street saying, “It’s gone!”

In between Jeonghan’s soft “I love you”s which he knows Seungcheol won’t be able to hear, he falls asleep.

 _“The party line is that some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.”_ Ned Vizzini; It’s Kind of a Funny Story.

 

*

 

“I’m sorry about that,” was the very first thing Jeonghan says to his roommate for he’s beyond sure his sobs earlier weren’t as muffled as he thought it would be. It’s fifteen minutes past nine and he shoots a small _‘I’m sorry. I can’t’_ to the text that said _‘You’re not really going home?’._ There is a bunch of missed calls from Jihoon and Chan but he dismisses it, all the while shoving his thoughts away from what he has always been avoiding.

“Oh no, it’s okay, Jeonghan,” the said roommate answers with a thick Chinese accent blending into the harsh lines of his English words. He scoots to the side of the couch so he could make room for him but Jeonghan shakes his head; only leans against the doorway of his room. It takes a minute for Junhui to pick up the question without being too intrusive so he opts with a, “You want to talk about it?”

Jeonghan shrugs. “My boyfriend,” and then he laughs although he did not mean for it to crack halfway.

“Oh was that the call all about?” Junhui is quick to catch the vulnerability of the former and Jeonghan is thankful for that. “That’s nice. What did he say?”

“Told me I’m perfect by dropping pizza into the street.” Jeonghan does not understand up until now how badly he wants to take it back before everything all went wrong.

“Long distance relationships suck. You probably miss him.”

Before the worst. “So much.” And he wishes the distance is the only thing dragging him down right now.

“Well, how about you take the vacation break and visit him?” Junhui lights up, almost immediately, clasping his hands together in a promising position of wanting Jeonghan to be, at least, happy.

Jeonghan looks down, suddenly remembering another passage from a goddamn book: _“Every loss is unprecedented. You can’t ever know someone else’s hurt, not really—just like touching someone else’s body isn’t the same as having someone else’s body.”_

“I can’t, Junhui.”

“But why?”

Before it was all too late. “I still don’t have the courage to.”

Junhui raises his brow in confusion and Jeonghan would have laughed if not for the numb panging in his knees. He decides to continue, saying it out loud, practicing the thought even though it has already been years. Jeonghan hasn’t really wrapped his head around it. Denial was a very strong competitor. After all, denying has always been easy, right? “Seungcheol.. died around three years ago, exactly this very day.”

Jeonghan remembers waking up to a frantic surge of international calls that night. He remembers laughing nervously when Jihoon tells him about the drunk driving and the car crash that took three of his friends’ lives: Mingyu, Soonyoung, Minghao; and Seungcheol’s. He remembers wanting to whack Seungcheol very badly because he thought it was a prank to get him to come home.

Jeonghan remembers crying so hard because he wishes it should have been only a prank.

But it wasn’t.

He remembers Seungcheol saying, _“What would I do without you?”_ when he was in the airport waiting for his flight to New York.

What would he really do without him?

“We have made it a thing, you know,” Jeonghan explains with a small voice, taking a whole new interest in his shoes, “to record every calls that we have because he said it could be something to look back every time someone misses the other.” He looks up, scrunches his nose, and chuckles though bitterly. “I hate how he’s always so right at everything.”

“I’m sorry.” Jeonghan notices Junhui has lost his voice and he only shrugs as he slips his coat on and trudges silently toward the door all the while wrapping himself up in a big gray scarf.

That was what they always say. Even when Jeonghan came home to a lighted up hallway of their home in Seoul, they apologized. The door was unlatched like how Seungcheol always forgot; they said sorry. The key was under the mat and even his own friends told him they were sorry.

Apologies do not bring him Seungcheol back though.

Even if he loved Seungcheol personal and up close, it would not have made a difference but he thinks, maybe it would somehow be like Jeonghan was never away.

_You can love someone so much but you really can never love people as much as you can miss them._

“It’s late Jeonghan, where are you going?”

“Just the nearest bookstore.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did not put the appropriate archive warning because I wanna jump at all of you with the angst. I am truly: sorry.
> 
> Yes I've read the books I mentioned in this fic. God, I love books. Hope everyone's well. Tell me your thoughts and let's talk about jeongcheol or books (or ask me questions; would not really mind recommending books to you too) in: curiouscat.me/pflaume or jcpflaume.tumblr.com


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